It is Better to be Lost Together
by l.h. Zein
Summary: "We skirt around the things we actually want to say by speaking in vague fragments drenched in eloquence. Give me honesty for once." She pauses and a short laugh escapes her lips. Quickly, it becomes louder, shaking her entire body. "Truth from a god of lies, from a trickster. I must surely have gone mad." "I am capable of truths, I simply have a tendency to bend them."
The world ended.

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the worlds ended, because surely it was not just one that fell that day. It was not dark, well not dark in the moments before it ended. It was ablaze. Fire swirling and the unruly nature of the Neverfolk closing in, engulfing everything into their inescapable embrace.

For him, it was like coming home.

He, the trigger of an apocalypse, the bringer of Ragnarok; he was the key for the end and the beginning.

He could have stopped it.

It bothered him. Guilt, an unfamiliar emotion, that would crawl across him in those long years of his imprisonment. Though, he wasn't all too sorry. They deserved it. They all did.

The world has ended and begun thousands of times. Even if the events had unfolded in a different way, fate would have intervened. The yarn that had woven the events too thick to be cut by mere will. So he waited, reveled in his true nature, until he was freed. To end is to begin, and a new world order was quick to grow, branching, twisting, until the plains once again held green roots and steep rocks, and the oceans were filled with clear fluid. Ash entirely forgotten. The fires too distant to be remembered. Too distant to be remembered by those young beings who walked the Earth, but not too distant for him. Never for him. He loved his nature. Truly he did. Though there is a curse for those wrapped in Chaos, those born in the fire, they will remember. They will persevere.

He and the rest of them are freed. Not all. There are some that haven't survived or are bound in Hel's domain. The lucky few have moved on. Peace. The notion is as foreign as it is humorous to him.

Odin is gone. He thought he'd be happier for that. Thought he'd find solace that the manipulator, who had moved him around like a chess piece on a board, was finally gone. No, it isn't happiness, but it isn't sorrow either. There's something in the middle of those extremes lodged in his chest. After all, they were brothers once.

Home is a little different now. Asgard is gone. He thought some fool would try to return, possibly try to salvage something from the ruins, or crazier still, try to rebuild it. The ghosts of the wreckage prove to be too much, since not a single soul tries. Except for him. He goes; sits for hours in the ruins of the home he once shared with a wife he didn't know how to love and two sons he never really knew. He feels another spirit join him, it's fleeting, familiar. He blinks and shakes his head. It can't be, because the Thunderer is just as gone as his father. Gone and not dead, like he'd never existed to begin with.

He wonders if he should seek out Sigyn, wonders if she'd even agree to see him. He needs more time, so he sends her hints, messages he knows she'll understand. There are things he needs to come to terms with, demons he needs to silence before he goes back to rejoin the fray.

Her first gasp of life was painful. Bones cracked and dust swirled within her unused lungs. It was bitter, acid in her throat. For the second that she took her first breath was also the second that she remembered. It almost makes her wish that breath had never come. Almost. She is selfish for her life, selfish that she takes the second breath.

She drops down to Earth from the heavens. Roams all the places she'd dreamt of, but never seen. She is no housewife, no handmaiden, no Goddess. She is a wanderer.

The animals make friends with her, recognize her dominion over them. Once she's tired of the wilderness, she edges into the cities. Watching the humans is no short of entertaining, but she doesn't need to search far before noticing the signs that even their end is not too far off. I _t's cruel_ , she thinks, _Why have the Fates let her into a dying world?_

She sees others in passing Njord, Indun, even Freya once. She ignores them, ignores the stares and the thoughts that surely circle in their minds. If you are here, where is your husband?

It's a short walk to her humble studio apartment. A walk that takes her down an alley and above a tiny Chinese restaurant. She'll stay here until the end of the month, leave the landlord next month's rent as a gift, though he won't remember who it came from. He won't remember anything.

The doors open, and when fear should be clouding her mind, she's met with calm. A knife is already in her hand, and she can't help the small smile that graces her face. Sigyn the fighter. Someone is surely laughing at that. It's all for not, she finds, when there's only a lonely figure sitting on her couch, drinking her tea, and watching her enter as though she was the guest and not the owner of the home. Frigg.

She sat across from her. The knife is still in plain view. It is not much of a threat on its own, but wielded by an equal, anything is possible. Frigg puts down her cup. "Hello Sigyn." She says nothing. Frigg smiles, though in the light all it does is highlight the deranged look in her eyes. "I'm here because I felt as though I would go mad alone." Frigg continues, "I needed to speak with someone who would understand."

Her eyes narrow. On the surface, they seem the same. Their losses mirrored. Sons. Husbands. Homes. Though Frigg forgets, her losses she practically chose, all the while dictating the punishments of others. "If you wanted sympathy and comfort, you are in the wrong home." Frigg puts the cup on the coffee table, a sight that irks her to no end. "How dare you come into my home." her voice is low, "and pretend that your loss and mine are the same. You murdered my sons simply for the blood that ran in their veins. Every loss you have ever had you practically hand picked. Your choices led to your downfall, and you brought us all down with you."

The smile is gone, instead a stony calm is carved in the remaining lines and edges of what was once a round a beautiful face. "I came here with true intentions, but if we must pass around judgement then I will defend the justice I helped fashion." The knife seems a little heavier in her hand, as she forces emotion from her mind. Calm. Remember to be calm.

"There are rules, laws for a kingdom built on Order. Balance had to remain." Frigg pursed her lips.

"Your sons for mine. Was that not fair?" No it was not fair. Her hands are clenched and a scream is on her tongue. She is rage. Blind in it. Perhaps now she can truly mark herself equal to the one who shared her name, heart, and home. A second and she is no longer perched opposite the other. "You and yours brought the cycle to its conclusion. Your entire line would not have been payment enough." She whispers in Frigg's ear, her blade somehow in her hand tracing the lines of the All Mother's neck. "Death is what you seek, and I will not grant it to you. So long as I can, I will do all in my capabilities to ensure you are denied it. A mercy you showed to no one. A mercy you never gave my sons." She wonders what Frigg sees now. No handmaiden of hers. She can't resist one last jab. "You were a selfish Queen, but," she licked her lips, "a wonderful mother."

Frigg blinks, and she's gone.

Loki dreams now. Not the dreams in which he traveled between realms, but the one's where he is terrorized by memories. They keep him awake. He'll go days without sleep, and then when his physical form can no longer hold. he crashes and the dreams come again.

He's chained. Venom falling and leaving scorched skin as it trails down his face.

 _You deserve it. You deserve it. You deserve it._

So what if he does? He still can't regret it.

The burning stops. His vision finally clears, and he makes out a bowl.

 _Sigyn._

For her, he'd apologize. The one who was loyal to him till her end, and yet, the one he wronged the most.

"Do you still think about _her?"_ Sigyn is speaking. He shakes his head. She laughs, clearly not fooled. "Oh you do. You mourned her loss, the witch you could not have because of me." He loved her he did, but Sigyn never understood it was the Chaos in them both, fire that held them together.

"Or maybe you did not love her. You left her still, even though she bore you those fierce children that served as your legacy."

His tongue is cut. Words no longer his saving grace.

"What do you care for? Not me. Not Angrboda. Not Fenrir. Not Hel. Not Vali. Not Nari." He shuts his eyes, vision swirling with each face. "Certainly not Odin. No, not when he tricked you into this form, weaker and able to control…"

 _What do you care for? What do you are for?_

Words seem to come then. "Odin flirted too close with flame that would have left lesser beings burned. He was my brother in every way, in all the wicked ways that mattered." Sigyn bends down. "And despite that kinship, you still watched him burn."

He jolts awake, thick with sweat.

 _What do you care for? What do you care for?_

He seeks her out, taking the risk that she just might be as mad as him, but he needs… He's not sure what he needs.

She's not hard to track, doesn't even try to cover her apartment is nice, different from the ones he checked before. Nicer neighborhood. Corner bookshop. A doorman. Maybe she was tired of the smell of Chinese food and dark alleyways. He knocks on the door, and she opens. No shock. No surprise. She's been expecting him, and strangely that's a comfort.

"What do you want?"

Speechless. He's never felt so abandoned. Words. Words that used to be his one saving grace have abandoned him on so many occasions that he wonders if perhaps coming back has ruined what was once his only real gift.

"This place is beautiful." He says walking around and taking in the art on the walls. She'd settled into this apartment, picked herself up, adapted. Strong. Sigyn was strong. Stronger than he or anyone else ever thought her to be.

He turns to her, takes her in. Dark hair is spilling down her back, and he finally notices the tea cup on the table. "You look beautiful." It might have been sleep deprivation. It could have been the utter discomfort that was clouding his judgement and ability to think. Regardless, the words tumbled out before he could stop them. Her back straightens and her pose seems all the more threatening. "You didn't come here to compliment me or my house."

"No." It's all he can really say. She frowns. "You look awful." He snorts, a hand running through his hair in an attempt to straighten out any wayward strands. All he really accomplishes is to add to the messed look. "The world has come and gone, and you can still manage to criticize my appearance." The jab is not sharp, in fact it was almost gentle.

"A habit." she murmurs, "I was your wife after all."

"Are." he corrects, "You are my wife as bond to me now as the day we exchanged vows."

"What vows do you recognize?" she says, her voice edged slightly higher. "Those followed by the acts that support them." he retorts, "You could have stopped being my wife, but you did not. You came to my prison and cared for me despite all I'd been condemned of." He pauses. He seems lost. It's quite a sight. She's seen practically every side of the man before her, but he'd never once appeared lost.

"Why?"

It angers her. Infuriates her that he doesn't understand the most basic of emotions.

"I did it because I loved you. You destroyed the world, and I loved you still. Does that not make me as monstrous as you?"

He frowns. "You are no monster. I destroyed the world and lit the match. They deserved it. They prompted my anger, so they should have known it would not go unanswered." He growls, though she hears it in the end, the slightest of hesitations, of doubt.

"So you let it burn for spite?" she asks, her voice rising to match his.

"No." He yelled, "but if my spite urged it on I will not say I regret it." He looks at her and deflates. Lost. That look seems to come out again. "It would have happened anyway. I saw it." His eyes glass over, unfocused, drifting into worlds only he'd seen. He needs her to understand. That's what is beneath this whole performance. There's acid in her throat again. He demanded the one thing, he'd never given her.

"If you believe it, then go. Spare me, you silver tongued fox."

He growls. Frustration boiling over, no longer contained within this thin flesh. "That's not what I meant to say."

"We skirt around the things we actually want to say by speaking in vague fragments drenched in eloquence. Give me honesty for once." She pauses and a short laugh escapes her lips. Quickly, it becomes louder, shaking her entire body. "Truth from a god of lies, from a trickster. I must surely have gone mad."

"I am capable of truths, I simply have a tendency to bend them."

She raises her brow, unimpressed.

He falls into a chair, completely worn. "I never knew how to love you properly." he struggles, "Perhaps I never knew how to love at all."

She finds herself in a seat opposite of him, captivated by his struggle and mesmerized by the words he seems to be saying.

"Maybe I never learned to." he continues, "Though now, after everything that has happened, after all our loss…" His voice seems to break. She closes her eyes, and listens as he tries to compose himself. He takes a deep breath. "I always thought it was odd." he begins again. "That you and I would somehow be woven together. You, loyal to a fault, paired to me, a trickster without a loyal bone in his entire body."

"Yet here we are." She said then, her eyes fluttering open and settling on his face. He nods.

"It is entirely selfish for me to come to you, but I need to learn...I need a focal point." She's silent. "I sense you need one too."

When still she says nothing, he continues. "I am your husband."

 _What do you care for? What do you care for? What do you care for?_

Lost. They are both lost. After all, wandering for decades is no way to be found.

He drops his gaze to the floor. "I am your husband." She kneels in front of him and cups his face. "I am your wife." They stare into each other, eyes only a window into what lurks beneath.

"Perhaps it is better for us to be lost together." She whispers. He brings her hands to his lips and presses chaste kisses to both. She leans her forehead against his. "And if we are never found?" he asks.

She opens her eyes. "We've all failed at our tasks before." He laughs then, slightly. It's a ghost of the one that she first fell in love with an entire era before. He surprises her when he leans in and steals a kiss. She savors it slowly, tastes the chaos contained in his lips. "Then let's be lost." He whispers against her skin. _No._ She thinks before stealing the next kiss. _They are already halfway to being found._


End file.
